Never Alone
by Laura the infamous B
Summary: A tag to Deep Water by Gryph.


**Never Alone**   
by: Laura Boeff 

Nick stared sullenly into the dark, murky waters of the bay. A sharp wind rustled his   
hair and jacket, and he hugged his knees tighter, folding into himself as much as possible.   
The wind was a welcomed friend. It seem to bless his dark mood with it's cold caress.   
Everything was so wrong. Everything and everyone was wanting something from him   
and it wasn't his research. All he ever wanted was to do research. Study, learn, expand   
mans knowledge of the earth. Oh, they hide it well. Were discreet, but he knew, he knew   
they watched him with curious eyes. His friends, his associates, and lord knew who in   
Monique's government. Nick had no delusions about how much of their attention he now   
had. Suspected his own government was catching on as well. No longer curious about his   
research, but curious about him. His perceived power.   
His control.   
He laughed out loud. Control? Yea, right. Control was the last thing he had right   
now. Out of control was more like it. Spiraling down a corridor of confusion that seem to grow   
more everyday he tried to cope. Nick dropped his head onto his knees with a groan. Dear   
god, he'd wished he'd never come to New York. Somedays, in the dark recesses of his mind,   
he sometimes even wished he hadn't been born.   
Nick looked back up. His choices were few. Learn to live with those who now knew   
his secret, -his friends he could handle, it was the other eyes he feared, the governments,   
the terrorists that had done this to him- or try to hide from those same said people on a   
planet surrounded by satellite surveillance systems.   
Or...   
He looked at the black water, not really shocked. Suicidal tendencies had been   
cropping up more and more. Not obvious, no. No, their form was far more subtle. More   
reckless risk taking. Dangerous attempts in the field. Daring perilous situations, pushing the   
boundaries of common sense. Others called it foolhardy and headstrong, he called it what it   
was.   
A death wish.   
His head hit his knees again. Even that was no solution. It would only leave Godzilla   
unguided and vulnerable. A thought that twisted at Nick's gut. How many would be hurt by   
the great monster before the inevitable death that would follow his own?   
Nick felt a pressure in the back of his skull. A throbbing sensation that was neither   
pain, nor thought, simply existence. An inquiry. He was surprised and blinked, jerking back   
as if burned. Usually Godzilla's presence in the back of his mind was merely that, a   
presence, but now there was more almost an intelligence. A growing clarity between them.   
"No!" Nick screamed, hurling himself to his feet. Not closer damn it! He couldn't   
handle this right now. He didn't want to be closer to the monster's mind. To understand what   
should always remain a mystery. He didn't want to be a freak of nature like the creature that   
had attached itself to him!   
Nick turned and ran blindly down the dark wharf, dodging the crates and barrels   
stacked liberally along the shoreside. As if distance was the key to saving his sanity. He   
clambered fences and rolled over boxes in a mad dash, chest heaving as sobbing breath   
tore from his throat. He wasn't a freak! He wouldn't be some one else's damn research   
project!   
The inquiry was now worry and he rebelled against it, throwing his darkest thoughts   
at the intruder in his brain.   
'Go away!' he screamed silently. 'Go away and leave me alone!'   
Alone. It was something he would never be able to take for granted again. His way   
was blocked suddenly by a mammoth stack of steel shipping crates that towered like an   
impenetrable wall. Nick hurled himself at it all the same, body slamming against the uncaring   
barrier with a resounding thud. He never bothered to try and go around, only through. Nick   
hurled himself again and again, screaming to the heavens in rage against what fate had   
been wrought against him. It all ended as his legs gave and Nick collapsed in a sobbing pile,   
burying his face in his arms.   
"Go away," he whispered to the shadow in his mind.   
His own raspy breathing blocked out the sound of the water lifting and breaking as a   
sleek reptilian head broke water, an exhale scattering drops of water across the bay. 

Godzilla scanned the area in confusion, trying to find whatever threatened his   
parent. So much about his parent confused him. There were no constants with his parent.   
Always changing, always different was the perception Godzilla had, but, confusing as it was,   
he could not ignore the most basic instinct ingrained in him from birth. -Follow the parent,   
learn, protect.- His parent would lead him, teach him, but his parent also did so many other   
strange things. Allowed others in his territory, helped the ones that hurt him. Try and stop   
him from protecting his own territory.   
Godzilla shook his head, as much as to shed the last remnants of water as the odd   
thoughts in his mind. This was his parent, and he would follow, and learn, and protect. 

Nick looked up the same time Godzilla leaned over the wharf, clawed fore feet   
gouging across the weathered wood as he leaned down, sniffing curiously at him. He felt the   
pounding confusion in the back of his mind, coupled with territorially instincts. The two were   
colliding in a jumble with his own thoughts of despair and depression till they were whirling   
together, one indistinguishable from the other.   
The great orange eye blinked lazily, locked onto him, iris dilating in the dark night.   
Nick stared back into the eye that was as wide as he was high and stood unsteadily. Godzilla   
let out an inquiring rumble, drawing back, one fore claw going back into the water and taking   
a rotted chunk of the dock with it.   
"Does it confuse you as much as me?" he asked aloud to the great lizard. Godzilla   
cocked his head, a slight gesture indicating his lack of understanding. His grasp of the   
human language was limited to a small pile of words.   
Nick smiled slightly at the familiar gesture. And envied his giant charge. Godzilla   
didn't know the feeling of being different. He was unique and thusly could be compared to   
nothing else. He would never know the feelings of isolation caused by nonconformity. Never.   
Alone. Last of his kind. Alone.   
Nick felt an indescribable pity and guilt at those thoughts. He was both savior and   
destroyer of Godzilla's kind. Was this his punishment for the genocide he had helped   
perpetuate? To be charged with the care and well being of the last of the noble monsters. To   
share a part of himself in payment for the flesh he had destroyed.   
"Seems fitting in a way," he said softly, holding his hand out. Godzilla wuffeled at the   
strange gesture and looked at him. Nick tried to construct a feeling of warmth. Of the pride   
he felt when Godzilla did the right thing at the right moment which was the lizards greatest   
skill. He sent that feeling of warmth to the pinpoint in his mind that had become Godzilla's   
place within him. Tried... tried to let the lizard know he cared. Despite everything, the pain,   
the depression, the fleeting bouts with his sanity, he cared. Would the lizard understand?   
Was the feeling two way?   
Godzilla wuffeled again, blinked and dropped his head, chin scraping across the   
wharf till it was a handsbreath away. Nick leaned forward, scrubbing at the heavy scales on   
Godzilla's lower jaw with both hands; putting all his strength into his long scratches under the   
lip, allowing himself to feel the child like joy of merely touching this mountain of intelligent   
muscle.   
Moments like this cut through the murkiness of the real world. They were the bright   
beacons that kept him afloat in the tumult of private agendas and personal vendettas.   
Godzilla rumbled and Nick looked up just in time to see a large wet tongue snake out and   
wrap around him, drenching him head to toe in lizard spit before Godzilla freed him and   
slipped back into the water, certain that all was well again.   
Nick could only laugh despite the putrid spit he was covered in. His curse, his   
blessing. One and the same and part of him.   
"You sure know how to ruin a good sulk!" he shouted at the turbulent waters, not the   
least bit angry. 


End file.
